A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves.

The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.

Under the rules, most children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”

The new regulations, first proposed August 31 by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, would also revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA, replacing them instead with a 90-hour federal government training course.

Rossie Blinson, a 21-year-old college student from Buis Creek, N.C., told The Daily Caller that the federal government’s plan will do far more harm than good.

“The main concern I have is that it would prevent kids from doing 4-H and FFA projects if they’re not at their parents’ house,” said Blinson.

“I started showing sheep when I was four years old. I started with cattle around 8. It’s been very important. I learned a lot of responsibility being a farm kid.”

In Kansas, Cherokee County Farm Bureau president Jeff Clark was out in the field — literally on a tractor — when TheDC reached him. He said if Solis’s regulations are implemented, farming families’ labor losses from their children will only be part of the problem.

“What would be more of a blow,” he said, “is not teaching our kids the values of working on a farm.”

The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the average age of the American farmer is now over 50.

“Losing that work ethic — it’s so hard to pick this up later in life,” Clark said. “There’s other ways to learn how to farm, but it’s so hard. You can learn so much more working on the farm when you’re 12, 13, 14 years old.”

John Weber, 19, understands. The Minneapolis native grew up in suburbia and learned the livestock business working summers on his relatives’ farm.

He’s now a college Agriculture major.

“I started working on my grandparent’s and uncle’s farms for a couple of weeks in the summer when I was 12,” Weber told TheDC. “I started spending full summers there when I was 13.”

“The work ethic is a huge part of it. It gave me a lot of direction and opportunity in my life. If they do this it will prevent a lot of interest in agriculture. It’s harder to get a 16 year-old interested in farming than a 12 year old.”

Weber is also a small businessman. In high school, he said, he took out a loan and bought a few steers to raise for income. “Under these regulations,” he explained, “I wouldn’t be allowed to do that.”

In February the Labor Department seemingly backed away from what many had called an unrealistic reach into farmers’ families, reopening the public comment period on a section of the regulations designed to give parents an exemption for their own children.

But U.S. farmers’ largest trade group is unimpressed.

“American Farm Bureau does not view that as a victory,” said Kristi Boswell, a labor specialist with the American Farm Bureau Federation. “It’s a misconception that they have backed off on the parental exemption.”

There will be fire and brimstone and Earth will be destroyed!... in several billion years!-----------------------------------------
"Well, so long Earth. Thanks for the air... and what-not." -Philip J. Fry

I'm betting this one is more about having a law they can use to prosecute people who use their children as slave labor, than it is about curtailing 4-H activities.

There will be fire and brimstone and Earth will be destroyed!... in several billion years!-----------------------------------------
"Well, so long Earth. Thanks for the air... and what-not." -Philip J. Fry

Could that happen, maybe. Will there be abuses, sure. Could it give some kids their lives back? Absolutely.

Having grown up in a rural area myself, and seen the kids worked to death by the time they are forced to graduate early so they can be more forced labor, I hope the law is used as intended.

If you can't reasonably prove to a judge that you aren't using your kids for money, there should be penalties... Seeing as I don't have a farm, and no one I now know has one, I don't really care anyway... Citizens are stupid, lawmakers are stupid, stupid happens- WELCOME TO EARTH!

Quote:Originally posted by Storymark:
So much idocy on display.... (granted it's a PN thread)

The law was to prevent kids from working in hazerdous circumstances - and family-owned farms could be exempted from these rules if they wanted.

Its a regulation, not a law. The proposed regulation included a blanket ban on all child farm labor. That provision was not rejected, just placed under review for next year.

As it stood the regulation would not have prevented children from working on their parent's farm. But it would have prevented them from working on the farms of other family members. So cousin Bobby could not help out at harvest time and little Billy can't go help Uncle Rubarb slaughter Emu's for Thanksgiving.

My first job...at twelve was working on a pig and turkey farm. It was a dirty job but somebody had to do it. It taught me about hard work, farming, community, and how to get pig shit out of my hair (not to mention how to convince a 500lb boar to go where I wanted him to go). In other words...made me a better lawyer.

H

Hero...must be right on all of this. ALL of the rest of us are wrong. Chrisisall, 2012

Had I learned a trade from Pre-school to now, I'd be a master craftsman. Instead, I'm a dildo who can't get a job at K-Mart overnight stocking shelves because I don't have a Bachleor's degree, even though I own my house free and clear and I've put more shit together with my own two hands than most college grads that "make it" pay other people to do in their lifetimes.

My step-cousin lives in the rural south IL. He owns a landscaping business. He's a veteran with a beautiful wife and 4 children. Even his 8 year old helps out with the work, and the people paying for it are happy to see him.

What is Obama's problem with a self sufficient family????

Even more importanly, what's Obama's answer to this fake problem????

Let's make sure there are laws in place that say the kids in rural areas (the only kids in America that aren't fat by nature) can veg out all day playing XBox 360 unless they're learning nothing but liberal viewpoints in school by law?

Why am I worried about it lol.....

Good luck enforcing that Berry....

Anyone who's been south of Kankakee, IL knows that the only people who aren't allowed to smoke in bars are the people who the employees don't like.

Ay-yup. You expected otherwise? The only ones who will buy into PN-type idiocy is other idiots. I'm betting several of you got it right; I won't name names, lest my comments show up in someone's signature, but I think that was the best explanation, in conjunction with yours and Wish's. Meanwhile, the idiots bought into it whole hog. Only interesting thing in this thread is seeing the paranoids leap to PN's spoon-fed conclusions.

Hey Six...nobody stopped you from going to a trade school, dimwit. You're definitely one of the idiots here. If you and PN couldn't blame Obama for everything wrong in the world--despite the fact that this, among many things, has absolutely ZERO to do with him, you'd probably choke on your own vomit.

There will be fire and brimstone and Earth will be destroyed!... in several billion years!-----------------------------------------
"Well, so long Earth. Thanks for the air... and what-not." -Philip J. Fry

Quote:Originally posted by Niki2:
I won't name names, lest my comments show up in someone's signature

And for ETERNITY! I think some people here should have those comments inscribed on their tombstones and then be buried with the dead horse they've been beating to a bloody pulp...

Oh the HUMANITY!
Heh.

I am kinda liking "Stupid Happens, WELCOME TO EARTH! I could look at that one everyday, 'cause it's true every day....

A veer from the thread, but still on the issue of 'labor', and the federal imperial govt's view on running the lives of the citizens.

I was watching an episode of Top Gear, where the three co-stars ( Richard, Jeremy and James ) were off on a cross country tour of Italy. Richard's car ran into a bit of a mechanical snafu, and they had to pull over to the side of the road, and wait for a tow truck.

While there, the cops came upon them and almost ticketed them. What for ? Well, it was Sunday, you see, and with the film crew in tow, the cops were concerned that the bunch from Top Gear were " working " , on a Sunday, which apparently is veboten. I guess I could be most anywhere in Europe, but the Top Gear guys seemed rather amused at the whole idea. ( More so, as I think they talked themselves out of the ticket )

But this is how the social democrats view such things. OUR lives belong to the State, and we're lucky to be able to do with them what we can.

And so it is w/ the big govt types here, like Pelosi, Reid and Obama.

Era of big govt is over...like hell it is!

" We're all just folk. " - Mal

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

"The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

Quote:Originally posted by Niki2:Hey Six...nobody stopped you from going to a trade school, dimwit. You're definitely one of the idiots here. If you and PN couldn't blame Obama for everything wrong in the world--despite the fact that this, among many things, has absolutely ZERO to do with him, you'd probably choke on your own vomit.

I'm not talking about going to a trade school.

I'm talking about not having to go to school and learning something valuable instead. From K-12 the only class that benefited me growing up was a one semester class in keyboarding. 10-12 years ago, women at the temp agency were stunned that I could type over 60WPM with only a .5% error rate in the tests as a male. I think that even today that would still be impressive given that the kids growing up now "Tlk Lke Ths" in their text-speak.

As the world is, and has been LOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG before Obama, I had to endure ridicule and viciousness from idiots that couldn't touch my 99% Iowa Exam scores and weren't invited to take the SAT in 6th grade. By Jr. High, I was 70lbs, 5'2" and wore glasses and braces. It's a goddamned wonder I didn't end up being a pan-sexual Cure Worshiper with painted finger nails by the time I was 13.

Had I been able to learn on the job with my step-dad, remodeling homes and doing construction, I'd have ZERO problem securing any union job today, even without being some asshole's douchebag kid.

As for the idiot comment.... I just laugh that right off. Come to me and tell me how stupid I am the day you own your house free and clear, you have zero credit card debt, you have no car payment, and you did it all with only "some college" on any application. Add to that the fact that all the massive home improvements and lawn upgrades I've made have been on my own dime with my own two hands and brain for pennies on the dollar for what most americans would be putting on their credit card to have somebody else do.

You don't know me. I didn't call you out. You called me out. All it took was looking at my first sentence in this post and you called me an idiot and a PN worshiper.

If you had any clue at all who I was before you opened that big mouth of yours, you'd know that I laughed a lot of PNs stuff off in the past vocally, and I was one of Bush Jr's greatest detractors his last term in office.

It's really disgusting here in the RWED. Somehow, the Right side has now become aligned with my points of view when I post here when they were the people I used to argue with most based off of my beliefs when Bush Jr was president.

Without giving baseless insults because my particular political agenda was "under attack"....

You, Nikki2, are the Mirror Image of every single person on the other side you bitch about.

I was watching an episode of Top Gear, where the three co-stars ( Richard, Jeremy and James ) were off on a cross country tour of Italy. Richard's car ran into a bit of a mechanical snafu, and they had to pull over to the side of the road, and wait for a tow truck.

While there, the cops came upon them and almost ticketed them. What for ? Well, it was Sunday, you see, and with the film crew in tow, the cops were concerned that the bunch from Top Gear were " working " , on a Sunday, which apparently is veboten. I guess I could be most anywhere in Europe, but the Top Gear guys seemed rather amused at the whole idea.

Same insane laws in USA today, enforced by police state death squads under illegal orders from Dictator Hussein Obama Soetoro.

Every photographer in USA can be arrested or ticketed (or killed) for taking photos in any public place, unless they purchase a license permit for "commercial" photographers. Amateur photogs on forums warn to never carry a tripod or flash in public, and use a "covert camera bag", for fear of arrest, even when shooting photos of friends and family. Take a photo in a National Park and face arrest by a gun-toting park ranger if you or your model don't show ID fast enough. Yes it does happen in Amuraka.

Google "photography permit". Big Brother also requires every photography to buy a private contract from a private multinational corporation for $1-million in liability insurance. The First Amendment was replaced by Operation Northwoods.

I have to side with Jack about kids on farms, a family having a farm means the kids are going to be helping work it. As long as kids go to school, have some time to play with other kids outside of school, then I'm fine with them helping on the farm.

I don't agree with him when it comes to school however, I feel school is quite important.

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